Friday, 12 July 2013

Charity Shop Tea Parties

More Tea Vicar?!

I once hosted a vintage style tea party for my little sister (it was her 40th birthday!) and it was great fun planning it. Not least because it gave me the opportunity to use all my lovely vintage cups, cake plates and tea time paraphernalia.

This week has been a good one in terms of finding lovely vintage china in my local charity shop. There was a little influx of pretty tea cups and saucers and I nabbed them quickly before anyone else did. The flowery tea cup above is Royal Grafton Malvern and I have four tea cups and saucers with two side plates.

I have also have four of these Duchess Granville teacups and saucers for £3. I don't think that they're particularly old, but I just liked them and they seemed a good price. Miss Marple and I could enjoy tea on the lawn with these little cups. I am sure!

None of the vintage china I buy is valuable, I simply buy them because I like them. However, I'm beginning to wonder what the point is to my little vintage china habit? I can't keep on collecting pretty bits and pieces for ever as I would soon run out of space. I am lucky to have a nice sized dining room to store things in, but it mostly resembles a junk shop at the moment!

I have considered selling some of the things I buy, and although I won't get rich, I could certainly make some profit doing it. I'm not keen on eBay as it seems to be an enormous pit of stuff that my little items might drown in. I like Etsy a lot more, but need to do a little research on that.

Another option is selling at vintage fairs such as my local Kitsch and Stitch Fair. The thought of making the transfer from customer to seller is a teeny bit scary though. I have some inspired ideas for hand-made goodies that I would like to sell, so perhaps this might be the way to go.

Finally, I picked up 6 of these ridged milk shake glasses for £4. They look unused and have a nice weight to them; they would look perfect in a 50's diner. I'm not sure if they are originals or a modern equivalent as I found similar glasses for sale here. I must get some nice striped paper straws though, instead of these neon plastic ones!

I may just host a Vintage Tea Party every Sunday afternoon on the lawn and flounce around in the floral frock I told you about before.

Have any of you ventured into selling your vintage finds or hand made goods? If you have experience of selling at craft fairs or on Etsy or eBay, then I would love to hear from you.